tabletoppingboardgames 
Zoology is one of those games that seems easy to understand at first, but once you start playing, it turns into something a bit different than you expected.
The idea is easy enough. The big Encyclopedia Zoologica has basically exploded, and animals are all over the place. Your job is to put things back in order. But here’s the catch. Everyone can see your animal… except you. So you’re sitting there, looking at everyone else, trying to figure out what you are, while they’re all casually talking about you like it’s completely normal.
You’ll be asking questions, comparing animals, and trying to read between the lines. Because people won’t say things directly, you’re constantly thinking, “wait… was that helpful or were they just being polite?” It’s part deduction, part discussion, and a little bit of guessing based on vibes. And yeah, sometimes those vibes are completely wrong.
👥 2-6 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designer: Jeffrey CCH
🎨 Artwork: Charlie Lee
🏢 Publisher: Ice Makes (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
The setup is straightforward. Everyone gets an animal card, but you don’t look at your own. You put it in a holder facing outward, so everyone else can see it. From that moment on, you’re basically the only person in the room who doesn’t know what you are.
On your turn, you play a question card. These usually ask something like who is the biggest, fastest, or most suited to water. Nothing too complicated. Then everyone talks, and this is really the core of the game. You can’t say animal names, so no shortcuts. You have to refer to players instead. So instead of saying “the elephant,” you’re saying “I think Wouter fits this better than Anna.” It sounds simple, but it forces people to explain things in a slightly roundabout way.
After that, everyone votes on who fits the question best. That player gets the card in front of them as a clue. If there’s a tie, the card just sits next to the board, which… usually feels a bit like a wasted opportunity. Then you draw a new question card and take a guess token.
At first, nobody is guessing yet. Everyone just goes around once asking questions. After that, guessing opens up. You don’t have to wait for your turn, which makes a difference. If you think you’ve got it, you just go for it.
You place a token on an animal on the board. You can’t pick animals that other players have, so you need to keep track of that. If you’re right, you get 2 points. If you’re wrong, the token stays there as a reminder that it’s not in the game. I mean, failing is still useful here, which is… comforting, I guess.
A round ends when someone guesses correctly or when the tokens run out. Then there’s a final phase where everyone just gets one more guess, no more questions. These are worth 1 point, so a bit less exciting, but still important. After that, everything resets and you start again. First to 5 points wins.
It’s a simple structure on paper, but most of the game happens in the discussion around those steps.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The game looks good. Not in an over-the-top way, but in a way that feels pleasant on the table. The animals are illustrated with a soft style, a bit like watercolor. They’re easy to recognise, which is important, because you’ll be staring at them a lot. Some of them also have a bit of personality, which helps during discussion. You know, when someone says “this one just feels slow,” and everyone kind of agrees.
The board is circular, divided into different animal groups. It’s easy to read, and everything is visible from all sides. No one has to awkwardly lean over the table, which I always appreciate. The card holders are simple but do their job well. They keep your animal visible to others and hidden from you, which is kind of the whole point.
The guess tokens look like little magnifying glasses. It’s a small detail, but it fits the theme and makes sense. Nothing here is overdesigned. It all works, and it fits the game.
Our Experience
Zoology is one of those games where the actual actions are very light. You ask a question, people talk, you vote, and sometimes you guess. That’s it. But it doesn’t feel inactive, because the table is almost always involved. Everyone is constantly looking at the board, listening to what others say, and trying to make sense of it.
What makes it interesting is that you know everyone else’s animal, but not your own. So every question becomes a bit of a shared puzzle. You’re helping create information for others, while also trying to figure out what that same information means for you. That part worked really well for us, because it gives you something to think about even when it’s not your turn.
At the same time, the information you get isn’t always clear. Some questions give you something useful to work with, others leave you with a few possible answers and no real direction. So instead of building a clean line of logic, you’re often working with impressions. You look at how people vote, how confident they sound, and you try to connect the dots from there.
For us, that meant the experience could shift quite a bit during a round. Sometimes everything starts to line up and you feel ready to guess. Other times you’re just sitting there thinking, okay… I have three options and no idea which one is right.
The moment guessing opens up changes things as well. Before that, you’re mostly collecting information. After that, it becomes more about timing. Do you go early and risk being wrong, or do you wait and hope for something clearer? We had a few moments where someone just went for it and got rewarded, and others where waiting felt safer but didn’t really help either.
There’s also a bit of a balance in how people talk. If everyone is too obvious, the game becomes very easy. If people are too careful, it can stall. So you kind of need a group that naturally finds that middle ground. When that happens, the game flows quite nicely. When it doesn’t, it can feel a bit off.
For us, it worked more often than not, but it wasn’t always consistent. Some rounds felt really engaging, others just didn’t give you much to work with.
Our Thoughts
Looking at it more from a design point of view, Zoology has a strong idea at its core, but everything around that idea is quite light. There isn’t that much structure beyond asking, discussing, voting, and guessing, so most of the depth has to come from how players interact.
That also means the question cards are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. They’re not just content, they’re basically the engine of the game. If a question creates a clear distinction between animals, the round works. If it doesn’t, the whole thing becomes more open and harder to read. Over time, that makes the experience feel a bit uneven, depending on what comes up.
The game also doesn’t really build over time. Each round resets the situation completely, so you’re not developing a longer strategy or improving your position across rounds. You’re just trying to make the most out of the current one before everything starts over again. That keeps things moving, but it also means the game feels more tactical than something you really sink into.
The scoring adds to that. Getting 2 points for an early correct guess is strong, especially in a game that ends at 5. So timing matters quite a bit. Sometimes that feels like a good read, sometimes it feels like someone just took a chance at the right moment.
Another thing that stood out is how much the game depends on how people interpret the questions. When a card asks who is the fastest or strongest, there’s no single correct way to answer that. People might think about real-world facts, how the animal looks, or just what feels right in the moment. That keeps the discussion open, but it also makes the deduction less precise.
So where does that leave it? For us, it sits somewhere in between different styles of games. It’s not a strict deduction puzzle, not a bluffing game, and not a typical party game either. It’s more about discussion and comparison, with just enough structure to hold it together.
I guess that makes it a bit harder to recommend across the board. If you enjoy talking things through, reading how others think, and don’t mind that the answers aren’t always clear, there’s something interesting here. If you’re looking for something tighter or more controlled, this might feel a bit too open.
So yeah, is it special? The idea is. The rest depends a lot on what you want from it.
And I mean, any game that leads to a serious discussion about whether a penguin is “fast” or just “enthusiastic” is at least doing something memorable.
📝 We received a copy of Zoology from ICE Makes.
